Just ran across an interesting study. In it, Ruby Siddiqui argues that it's cost effective to treat all symptomatic patients with antiviral medications, even given the fact that you'll inevitably waste some courses on patients who aren't infected. What isn't cost-effective is to try and test each case and then administer antivirals. it's one of those cases where it's less expensive to permit some waste of the resource than it is to tightly identify the affected population. Abstract here:

Not really sure what to say about this.

It did make me realize that one of my favorite things in life is hearing people painfully enunciate slang. Saying the word "swagga" is not the same as saying the corrupted version of the word "swagger."

From his interview with David Leonhardt:

I have always said, though, that we should not overstate the degree to which consumers rather than doctors are going to be driving treatment, because, I just speak from my own experience, I’m a pretty-well-educated layperson when it comes to medical care; I know how to ask good questions of my doctor. But ultimately, he’s the guy with the medical degree. So, if he tells me, You know what, you’ve got such-and-such and you need to take such-and-such, I don’t go around arguing with him or go online to see if I can find a better opinion than his.

From his interview with David Leonhardt:

THE PRESIDENT: What I think will change, what I think was an aberration, was a situation where corporate profits in the financial sector were such a heavy part of our overall profitability over the last decade. That I think will change. And so part of that has to do with the effects of regulation that will inhibit some of the massive leveraging and the massive risk-taking that had become so common.

Now, in some ways, I think it’s important to understand that some of that wealth was illusory in the first place.

So we won’t miss it?

When Arlen Specter originally switched parties, I didn't think it meant much for health reform. So far as Republicans went, Specter was a likely get. His switch to the Democratic side made him yet likelier. But it was hard to say anything more definitive than that.

I'm with Ben Miller and Frank Bruni: Restaurants should charge for bread. As Bruni argues, there's no such thing as "free bread." Rather, there's such a thing as "slightly more expensive entrees." And that's the thing people are getting when they think they're getting free bread.